Many of us have gotten that classic late-night text from an ex, but nothing prepares you for the absolute confusion of a corporate connection request from the guy who blew your life up years ago.
When a married ex breaks years of radio silence just weeks before you walk down the aisle, are they testing the waters to see if they still have a hold on you?
This 30-year-old woman is currently married, but something happened in the weeks leading up to the big day that still has her puzzled.
Now, she has an ex the same age as her, with whom she was from 2013 to 2017. They never officially referred to themselves as girlfriend and boyfriend, but they spent years in a very complex and fiery relationship.
Needless to say, the time spent with her ex was volatile, and he sent her a lot of mixed signals. When things ended between them, it went down in flames and did not go well.
She stopped speaking to him in 2017, but then they had a conversation a year later about closure. Her ex went on to get married in 2022, then had a baby in 2023. She moved on, too, and met her 28-year-old husband.
“Over the years, my ex had blocked me on basically every social media platform. We had no communication whatsoever. The only place we technically still had visibility of each other was LinkedIn,” she explained.
Several weeks before her wedding, her ex did a few things. He followed her on LinkedIn, then liked one of her posts. Next, he shared a mysterious photo from a convenience store in her family’s old neighborhood.
“What made that last part stand out was that I had already been living abroad for a couple of years by then, and that area had personal significance because it’s where my family lived when he knew me,” she said.
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“Then things got even weirder. Within a short time, he removed the like. He unfollowed me. But shortly after that, he sent me a LinkedIn connection request. So the sequence was basically: follow → like → unlike → unfollow → connection request.”
“I never responded. Instead, I talked it through with my parents and my fiancé (now husband). I ultimately declined the request and updated my LinkedIn profile photo to one that included my fiancé and me in a professional setting.”
She never actually talked to her ex or anything like that, and here she is still wondering what he was trying to do after blocking her for years.
She does think it’s strange that her ex did this right before she got married, so she’s still curious about what he wanted or what his motives were.
She’s not trying to be a mind-reader, but she is hoping to gain some kind of insight into her ex.
“If your long-ago ex, who had been completely absent from your life for years and had blocked you on most platforms, suddenly started interacting with you shortly before your wedding and then sent a connection request, how would you interpret it?” she asked.
“Would you see it as simple curiosity? Nostalgia? Wanting acknowledgment? Something else? Interested in hearing perspectives from people who are completely removed from the situation.”
Oh, and she has no clue if his wife is aware of all of this, since she has never interacted with this woman before, and she’s a stranger to her.
When some men see their former partners thriving and moving toward the altar, I do think things can get, well, weird. This comes across to me like her ex was testing her to see if she would be open to a connection again.
I’m not sure why else he would do what he did unless it was ego-driven, or perhaps he wanted to see if he could swoop in at the last minute.
Whatever the motive, we will truly never know, and I think she should leave her ex in her past and focus on her marriage to her husband. Bye, Felicia.
What do you think?
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By Bre Avery Zacharski
Hi, I'm Bre, Chip Chick's CEO! I have a degree in Textile/Surface Design from The Fashion Institute of Technology, and... More about Bre Avery Zacharski
